


"If I Did It", by Hollywood's Cliff Booth

by terebi_me



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Dark Comedy, Dubious Morality, Gen, Marriage, Military Background, Military Backstory, Morally Ambiguous Character, Past Drug Use, Riffing on Cliff, Sexy Macbeth, Tarantino-style Comedy Violence, Violent Thoughts, decide for yourself, killing machine, secret psycho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terebi_me/pseuds/terebi_me
Summary: Get the full story in Cliff Booth's own words! Did he do it? And if so... how?
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	"If I Did It", by Hollywood's Cliff Booth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celinamoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celinamoon/gifts).



> I love this fandom. We're like a rattlesnake on a motorcycle.

Booth's words read as those of a man unwilling to accept responsibility for his own violent actions. -Mike Connelly, _Hollywood Reporter_

“A confession? Judge for yourself. My feeling? You bet it is. The case is now officially closed. This appalling but mesmerizing book does it" - _The Buffalo News_

“It’s as if Cliff Booth is sitting across from the reader, laying out his side of the story, one-on-one, no reporters or gossip columnists or _Hollywood Reporter_ vultures sticking in their beaks.” - _Vanity Fair_

See, one of the things about it is that we never did get along.

I don’t know; maybe for a week, the first week. And during that one week, we were, both of us, doped to the gills. I was on those pain pills from that wreck I got into at Gardena Stadium, what they call Western Speedway these days; and it’d been a couple of days I’d been taking them, three times a day. And she’d been in a wreck, too, driving home pickled from this club where she was a dancer. It wasn’t a great place, but she weren’t no great dancer, either. Looked good shimmying out of a fur coat that belonged to the club, showing off that body underneath, though, that was for damn sure. That kinda work is always hiring, even when jobs get thin on the ground for chorus girls and department-store models. Never bothered me, her being looked at. It’s not all that different from what I’ve done. That ain’t it.

The night I met her, she had left her neck brace at home, even though she was supposed to wear it full-time for another week. But she’d gotten bored waiting to heal up and went out that night ready for some action. She came at me like one of them Molotov cocktails. I guess I must’ve charmed her, with my black eye and a few dollars to buy a lady a drink, being the only person who’d said a decent word to her in a dog’s age. We started talking, and that was it. We just fell into it and it felt good. We made a lot of love for a couple of days. And, truthfully, I really needed a place to live, and getting married made some kind of sense to two hop-heads half drunk on fucking and so stoned on pills everything was in soft focus, everything was nice. It really weren’t thought out no more than that.

So, you see, her neck was broken before I even met her.

I never said I was smart.

But I carried her over the threshold of her own apartment, and that was the last happy moment, probably. Besides that, by the time we got to Marina del Rey for the honeymoon, I was down to four pain pills and she was down to two. By the next morning, there weren’t any, and it wasn’t me takin’ ’em. But I damn well sure still could have appreciated ’em.

No, I did not know Rick Dalton yet. Not when I first got married. It was before Bounty Law got started, and I didn’t hit that set for while after they got picked up to series. I met Rick later, when the show was already on the air and Rick had already run through a couple of doubles who lacked the capacity to work with him. I don’t think it would have changed anything, me knowing him or not. Maybe. But I don’t know which way it’d go, make me more or less likely to do it. I can’t say. 

The case was decided the way it was. The truth is what’s on record. It was decided that I did not kill my wife, and it doesn’t really matter what I say or what anybody thinks; people made up their minds.

This is what it’d have been like, though, say I did do it, since y’all won’t leave me alone, asking about it.

Just theoretical, you understand. The facts as I see them are on record with the court, judgment levied, and that’s an end of it.

Motive’s there. So’s opportunity. And I’ve seen enough legal-drama shows to know that’s half the battle.

What’s not there is proof. And, believe me, I’d have left proof. I just ain’t no stealth killer. The question of trying to “get away with” anything, it just never enters the equation. If I’m killing somebody, I’m killing ’em. And it can be messy.

Complicating the facts of the case was that, y’know, sure, I’d killed someone before. A lot of someones in fact, including a few dozen people I never even looked in the face. But plenty I had, too. That’s war, and it’s survival. It never gave me a sense of satisfaction to kill a person unless they were actively trying to kill me at the same time, and then, of course, I’d feel good because I’d survived. We all pretty much want to live. But I didn’t get a bang out of it or anything like that. I didn’t kill for the pleasure of ending a life. I just don’t see things that way. I’ve known plenty of people who did, but not me. Me, I didn’t feel anything in particular. Wasn’t sorry, though, for sure. Didn’t get choked up with remorse. I don’t see things that way, either. I saw a lot of dead that I hadn’t personally killed, too, some of them real messed up. In pieces and such. But even that didn’t make me feel much one way or the other, and that made me valuable to the United States military. 

I’ve killed plenty of people, and other living creatures, but I don’t seek it out, and I don’t get all tangled up if and when I do have to do it. There’s a difference between killing and murdering, and I know what side I’m on.

Everybody’s probably pretty damn lucky that’s the case.

Anyway, what had happened to Billie, in her car crash, is what’s called a cervical separation. The bones of the neck come apart. It happens a lot in lateral collisions, as I learned during the time I did the jalopy races, and once or twice on a set. I saw plenty of ’em. Sometimes a broken neck doesn’t kill you; sometimes it’s not even that big of a deal. Hers was enough to land her in the hospital for a couple of nights, but it didn’t paralyze her. Lord, no, that did not happen. Anyway, her neck got broken before I ever even met her.

And then I went and married her when I was hopped up on goofballs, and it look less than a week for me to regret the shit out of it. She stopped working, wanting to live off me, like I hadn’t told her I was a paycheck away from Skid Row. We’d been married for a couple of months, closing in on a year, and Billie had been on my ass about bringing in more money, definitely more than I could pull in working at the speedway, even as a driver. She was bored, and banging the grocery delivery boy, for groceries we couldn’t really afford to have delivered. I went and asked the kid, and he admitted it pretty readily. I let him know that I didn’t really so much mind, and if I did, he’d know about it. Frankly, I was grateful for the break; Billie was like a tiger, trying to eat me alive night after night. Look, I was almost forty when I married her; there’s only so much even the most interested man can do. No problem for me to spend more time out of that damn apartment, “working.” 

One day, on of the other gear heads who worked the Vallejo Speedway pit was bragging all loud about how he was gonna quit because he’d just gotten a stunting gig in a show. He told me I ought to be in pictures, what with my face, or at least I ought to get to do some make believe rough and tumble pretending to be somebody else. I bought him a couple of shots of Wild Turkey and asked him about what kind of money he’d be pulling, talked him into a thing or two, and by the end of the night, he’d agreed to take me with him out to the old Ray Corrigan Ranch and introduce me to the stunt coordinator. That was old Whitey Hughes, who doesn’t like me anymore, of course. Anyway, me and the gear head did a little play scrap between setups, and it caught Whitey’s eye. By the end of that week, I got my first stunt job. I call fall down just fine, I can throw a punch that doesn’t land, I can ride, I can hold a gun. Simple. Easy money.

It was enough more money to shut Billie up for a while. Not long enough, as it turned out.

I’m not saying she was a gold digger. I mean, only an idiot would marry a jalopy racer expecting to get filet mignon and pink champagne for breakfast every day, and one thing Billie was not, was stupid. No, she might have hated my guts, but boy, was she hot for me. When we were fucking, she had no complaints, and neither did I. We should have called it a one-night stand and gotten the hell away from each other. I don’t know; maybe I wanted that pussy on lockdown, and maybe she felt the same about my joint, or . . . Hell, I don’t know. Anyway, now I was in Hollywood. Sort of. Not the glitzy parties kind; a no-name stunter doesn’t get many invitations to those. But in front of cameras and under lights in a funny costume, having to listen to eight dozen assholes telling you what to do. No problem; I learned how to do that in the U.S. Army Corps. Do it again, get up, dust off, do another take, sir, yes sir.

Taking orders was comforting, if you want to know the truth. At first, even taking orders from Billie made me feel better. Just let someone else do the thinking, and let me . . . I don’t know, space out. Be there without having to really be. Be myself. But at the same time outside myself. I can be everywhere if I want to be; my mind can just be everywhere and nowhere at once, and I just take things as they come. Some hippie once described me as a “very Zen dude,” and I guess that’s what he was talking about.

I’m not a murderer. I know myself way better than most people do on that score. 

But if I happened to be one . . .

She was on me about taking a vacation, going someplace nice, as if we don’t live in beautiful Southern California. And she didn’t want to go to Vegas. No, she wanted to go to TJ. I myself had no desire to spend any more time there than I already had in the past—all of that San Diego border silliness, a bunch of shipped back soldiers so shell-shocked they can’t do much but drink, bars packed with stinking GIs, the donkey show, goddamn Caesar salad; I have seen it, and I am bored with it. But she insisted. While we were there I decided to rent a boat and take it out, to do some spear fishing, something I learned when I was in Manila. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to combine Billie, a boat, and a couple of big fucking pneumatic guns that shoot metal swords. Again, just no thought. I wasn’t following orders that time, though; that was a genuine independent action, and one I held out on when the wife talked for two solid hours about all the things that could go wrong, and probably would, since I was so stupid. My mind went everywhere and nowhere, except it was going somewhere—it was going out to sea, out on that ocean, where maybe I’d be able to clear my head and think straight. Anyway, all that stuff is true, nothing theoretical about it. I’m putting you into my mind frame, though, so you could see how I might have done it, and why, I’m sorry, it would have made plenty of sense. God rest her, but fuck that fucking bitch.

We go out on the boat, early in the morning. That already starts her off. She did not tolerate mornings well, and with a Tijuana hangover, the whole world took on new dimensions for us both. I steered the boat and ignored her for a good long while, heading to where the truly deep water began. Unfortunately I arrived there, and had nothing more serious to distract me from the steady stream of invective coming from my wife. 

It had been clear when we set out, but clouds rolled in and stayed there, and the breeze died, and it was hot and the boat smelled like fish guts, gasoline, and puke. I mean, most boats do smell like that, so I wasn’t too upset about that, but Billie was furious. She put on her string bikini and flopped down on a chair on deck, bitching about her tan.

It actually got better for a little while, when she started drinking again. I had a couple, too, sat at the edge trying to watch the water. Any fish with good sense would avoid all that noise, so I was just staring into the blue, trying to see through it, trying to concentrate. Being out here was supposed to help me concentrate. But it wasn’t happening. My wife had at least changed conversational tactics for a while, switching to complaining about the shitty time she had trying to buy the bikini. I saw a thick white streak in the blue, but before I could spot it, it was gone.

I said, “Damn it, Billie.” 

I didn’t shout it. I have never been much of a shouter. I just said it. But you’d have thought I was talking through a bullhorn, the way she jumped. I guess it was the closest to shouting I’d ever done around her and she wasn’t expecting it. I really did not talk back to her; not to my wife. Sometimes I’d try to explain my point of view on something, but I did not talk back to her, and I did not very often tell her what to do. 

She asked me what I was cussin’ for, and I told her that we’d come out here, all this way, in the boat, so I could try to get a swordfish, and I was pretty sure I just saw one go by. That was not the right thing for me to have done, in her opinion, to point that out, at that time. She sure as shit shook off being startled, and started in on me again, but this time, you know, really on me.

This really could go on for a while, and it seemed like she was getting her second wind, fired with enthusiasm to complain and insult me like it was her job. Once again, I tried to tune her out. I put on my wetsuit and flippers and goggles, hoping to go under and see if there actually was any activity, or if I should move the boat, or just call it a day and head back. But it was still morning, and I’d paid for the whole day, and it would have been nice to run a big fish through with a harpoon, maybe even just the big serrated knife I had clipped to my wetsuit’s utility belt. I’d have settled even for a smaller fish; anything to justify this whole situation. And under the water, I wouldn’t hear her. 

Billie was always skilled at yelling at me and making herself a cocktail at the same time. The little drinks I’d had earlier hadn’t affected me at all, but Billie didn’t weigh much, and the liquor always hit her harder and faster than it ever hit me. She got herself a fresh drink and then went back and sat in her chair on deck, pointing at me with her cigarette between clauses, as she went down the ever-expanding laundry list of all the shit wrong with me.

I had to escape. I finished my drink, turned around, and took a dive.

I swam out until I could hide the speck of the boat behind my thumb, then turned over and floated for a good long time. Swimming’s not my favorite thing, but it was more than worth it to get a moment’s peace. And I did get one, just looking up at the nothing, a part of me hoping I’d see maybe just a crack of blue sky in the clouds, but it just didn’t happen.

Unfortunately, after a while, I wanted a cigarette, and for that I had to go back to the boat. By the time I made it there I could already hear Billie, like she’d never stopped carping at me, even when I wasn’t there. “This is bullshit, Cliff! What the fuck do you call that?”

I told her I called it fishing.

“With what? Your bare hands? You’re so rough and tough you’re gonna catch a shark with your bare hands, and then, what? Punch it in the nose? What the fuck, Cliff, you just take off? What were you thinking, that you’d swim back to land and leave me here? It’s a power boat, you idiot, I’d just drive it back . . .”

I sat down and lit a smoke and thought about the fact that she even knew that I couldn’t stand her, and yeah, maybe I had actually thought of swimming back and stranding her ass. But she was right, and there wasn’t gonna be any way to get away from her, not for good. I admit that I did consider that. It was on my mind. But I just got a smoke and a beer and sat down and wished I was back out in the water.

That’s the thing. If I had actually done her in, it wouldn’t be something as simple and straightforward as breaking her neck and pushing her overboard, and then diving in to get her only to bring her back to shore and getting the authorities. When you think about that part, it doesn’t make sense, so the people who think that’s what I did just can’t be that smart. Who would do that? Like that? 

No, I would have shot a harpoon through her throat. I would have taken that cocktail glass and cracked it through her face. I would have grabbed her by her pretty blonde hair and busted her head against the anchor, or maybe just picked up the anchor and swung it at her; that would have practically busted her whole body in half. It’s a heavy son of a bitch. It’s an anchor. I could have strangled her with some ropes if I had to, but I’d have to be seriously pissed off to do that. Maybe if she had come at me. Hell, not really, though; she wasn’t no bigger than a minute, and I could have flicked her away with my goddamn fingernail. It wasn’t like she’d never come at me before, and I held her at arm’s length away from me like you do to a little kid. Oh, that pissed her off, when I did that; if I hadn’t turned it around into sex, she probably would have gone for her gun and blown my nuts off. 

I just wouldn’t do it like they say I did, is all I’m saying. It’s just not my style. Wouldn’t be cold and methodical like that. There were emotions involved. And they say I was cold and methodical afterwards, way too calm for a man who just lost his wife in an accident, but really, I had to go get her and bring her back on board, and after all that, I was tired.

But—trust me. If I did it, I’d have been smiling when I got back. 

**Author's Note:**

> If Tarantino can hilariously shade people who exist in our universe, I reserve the right to swipe a controversial title for this fic - about a controversial idea. Besides the title, this story has nothing to do with the OJ Simpson case - I haven’t read the “original”, I haven’t seen any documentaries, I’m thoroughly shot of OJ and haven’t wished to give him any more of my attention even if indirectly (which is weird; I’m a fan of true crime and celebrity true crime in particular - but just… no, dude.) Basically this is an excuse to write from the POV of adorable antihero, Cliff Booth, who I love, and who is capable of truly shocking violence that makes my blood run cold to recall. He’s so great. In fiction.
> 
> On the name: IMDb says "Billie", so that's what I'm going with. I can understand the ambiguity, though, thanks to the line delivery. 
> 
> All opening quotes are taken directly from the Amazon sales page of "If I Did It" by O.J. Simpson, very very lightly revised.


End file.
